New cookies policy - you'll only see this message once
This website uses 'cookies' to give you the best, most relevant experience. Using this website means you're happy with this. You can find out more about the cookies used by
clicking this link

Restaurants & Bars

All reviews

Latest Square Meal reviews - sorted by date review written or updated

Find out what Square Meal readers thought of their latest restaurant experience. Sort the reviews bellow by a variety of criteria to find inspiration for your next meal or get the lowdown on the latest launches.

Oh dear!

Has the management or the chef changed recently? Originally we thought Rotunda was very good, but our last visit was a big disappointment. Delicious ingredients ruined by bad cooking. Is it so difficult to bake a beautiful lemon sole without drying it out and leaving is crisp and chewy? In two minds whether we'll make the trek to Rotunda again. Very sad!

It's almost fast food - in a good way

Stumbled on this place by mistake, having been in town for meetings and on my way to check out Selfridges. I wanted something easy and quite quick, and seemed to remember having heard about this. It was disconcerting going in the place as it seemed a bit empty and I felt sort of lost (too old to understand it maybe, not their target demographic) - but staff were sufficiently engaging to overcome this and service was quick. A buttery brioche-type roll arrived with lots of lobster and chilli mayo - yum. Eaten up, happy customer, on my way.

Dinner

I have eaten here a few times and continue to enjoy the experience. The food is good and the service and atmosphere very good. Each time I have brought clients to the restaurant, they have been very impressed.

Still classic, but new too...

I haven't been here for quite a while, and it was my first visit since the refurb. Previously it did everything it aimed to do very well, and I was delighted to find it's still doing that. It's now a very different interior, but happily the good bits about the room are retained, including the stained glass and the wood panelling. The new central bar is great and the table layout is good too.
The comfort food remains consistently pleasing and the service was arguably better than ever, and certainly as friendly, welcoming and helpful as it's ever been.
If you've tired of this place, which I must admit I had done to some extent, you should try it again, it really has been rejuvenated.

garry b.'s rating

Handy for the O2

Just walk from the tube station towards the O2 dome and there it is - a restaurant on the first floor, and bar on the second. It's modern and airy, spacious and comfortable. There is an effort to provide home made, local and sustainable produce which is to be admired.
We had a very good evening there with family, it's light enough to see the menu and what you are eating, and buzzy but not so loud you can't converse. This is all fine and some of the food was excellent, but it just didn't hang together for me.
All started well with a bowl of fresh breads, including lovely light naan, and home made butter. The first course of cheese custard with mushrooms was a surprise - it was bowl of cheesy sauce topped by salad leaves with some crisp crackers, other vegetables and leaves and I think there was a slice of mushroom. The sauce was nice and cheesy, the crackers crunchy, the salad leaves awkward to eat dripping in sauce, and some of the green veg leaves so tough they were impossible to deal with.
My main course of lamb with tomatoes and anchovies was an assembly rather than a dish. Beautifully cooked, delicious lamb with a good grilled crust served sliced, on top of some sliced tomatoes, and anchovy sauce on the side. The sauce was so aggressive it overpowered the other ingredients so I left it.
Dessert was a disappointment - sweet Yorkshire pudding with berries and ice cream. I imagined perhaps a British take on a clafoutis type pudding, but it was just a rather uninteresting Yorkshire pudding with some berries inside and vanilla ice cream on top - another assembly.
Afterwards we went upstairs to the bar for a drink and it was very fresh out on the balcony with a great view of everything going on.
Overall we did have a good evening, some of the food is terrific, and would probably go there again if over there for an event at the O2. The menu changes very frequently, so I hope for better choices next time.

Mikki K.'s rating

Consistently good

This is the 4th time I have eaten here and as the title says, the food is consistently good, nothing particularly outstanding (apart from the vast selection of very reasonable wines by the glass!), but perfect for 4 of us to have a good old natter over really good platters of charcuterie, small plates of burrata, olives, pulled pork croquettes, followed by a delightfully crispy confit leg of duck on creamy mash and veal chops. The only slight downside was the service was erratic, although they did acknowledge this and brought us (unprompted) a glass each of sparkling moscato at the end of our meal by way of apology. This is a great place to meet friends and eat, drink and be merry but not for an intimate, quiet meal.

very good venue in St. James's

A meal of shelfish and crustacea - oysters, crab, lobster - of superb quality, especially the Newburg lobster. Very tasty and balanced the dessert, a chocolate fondant. Extraordinary the wine, Finca la Florencia, a chardonnay of Argentina, indeed great for value in a wine list with exaggerated mark-ups. Not unforgettable the Pedro Ximenez.
Very polite, helpful and effective the Hungarian waitress. Overall a great venue, absolutely to go.

Enjoyable meal

We ate here last night and shared beef tataki (melt in the mouth), Burrata and aubergine caviar (delicious) and Madagascan tiger prawns with salad and fries, washed down with a nice bottle of Picpoul, and a glass of port at the end of the meal.
Service was attentive and efficient (although the table next to us complained a lot that they weren't being served, but I think that had more to do with him focusing more on the lady in front of him than trying to get the waiters attention, as the rest of us all seemed to have plenty to eat and drink!). I have had drinks in the downstairs bar before, but this is the first time I have eaten here. We will be back I'm sure as we both work nearby.

A mixed experience

3 of us went for a free concert dinner. The food was generally pretty good. Starter of fish cakes was well cooked although the tartare sauce was a little bland. The lamb steak was large, properly seasoned and cooked and nicely presented.
Drinks were a bit hit or miss. I ordered an alcohol free cocktail however the waiter wasn't familiar with their cocktail list and instead gave me the alcoholic version. Likewise ordering a small glass of wine resulted in a large one being delivered - staff didn't seem very well trained, but we're keen to please.
The atmosphere was a bit disappointing, but imagine later in the evening and the week would be quite lovely.
Value for money was good with the square meal offer of 50% off the food, but would not be quite so attractive if you were paying full price.

Hamish G.'s rating

Always a pleasure

We must have been here at least half a dozen times, so that in itself shows we like it. In the winter it's warm and welcoming, in summer, when you can sit by the glass front opened up - it's like having dinner outside. it's quite smart with proper tablecloths and decent glassware, but not at all stuffy.
On our last visit the other day we had courgette and aubergine salad with mozzarella, and beef bresaola with horseradish, asparagus and Parmesan, and then as usual we chose fish - the grilled whole sea bass for two to share, plus a couple of side dishes of rosemary potatoes and green beans. This is familiar Italian food with a few modern updates and makes a good dinner with a decent bottle of wine.
We're fortunate that we can walk to it, the staff are always very pleasant and for us, it's a valued local restaurant.

Lynn W.'s rating

More than meats the eye

Think of Argentine cuisine and the typical response is steak. Zoilo, a small and intimate restaurant on the northern edge of Mayfair, proves this claim wrong. The food my comrade and I sampled on a recent weekday lunchtime certainly impressed, as did the ambience, even if the service was something of a let-down. The venue itself is small (but did not feel crowded) with room for around 20 covers upstairs spread between tables and seats at the bar. There is also a downstairs with an open-kitchen, although on a bright summer’s day we did not venture here. In terms of the food, Zoilo’s menu stresses that Argentine cuisine is a ‘fascinating mix of cultures’ reflecting both its indigenous heritage as well as its legacy of immigration. The menu itself is conveniently separated into distinct sections such as ‘land’ and ‘sea’ and our server informed us that the format here was along the lines of tapas, namely we should select a series of dishes, all of which would be appropriate for sharing. We loved the empanadas - a posh take on pasties - with which we began, one beef (rich and hearty) and one spinach & goat’s cheese (sumptuous and savoury). Our crab on toast which followed was also superb, delicately light, but still packed with flavour. At this stage, however, two problems occurred. First, maybe Argentines are a portly lot (I do not know any personally), but we already felt fairly full, although we still had a further five dishes to come. Second, maybe as a result of portion size and the need to digest, we had to endure a notable wait before our next dishes. This is all well and good if you want to linger, but we had deliberately arrived early at the restaurant to avoid the main crowd and were in a slight rush too. The next dishes, when they eventually came, also hit the mark, although Zoilo excelled more with its fish options (both the ceviche and the squid were among the best sampled recently in London) than with its meat (the pork, for example, was fatty and half-cold when it arrived). The wine list deserves note, with an unsurprisingly heavy local bias, and we enjoyed an attractively priced carafe of white made with the Torrontes grape. Overall, do pay a visit here, but don’t be in a rush, don’t over-order and make sure you try more than just the meat.